


My Blood

by Encairion



Category: Swordspoint Series - Kushner
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-20
Updated: 2010-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-09 15:11:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Encairion/pseuds/Encairion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly After "The Fall of Kings." Theron struggles with adjusting to his new life.  He is faced with an almost constant struggled against the Land that laid such strong shackles about him, and sank its claws into his lingering blood.</p><p>This is just one of many possible fates for Theron.  I wasn't satisfied with the ending of his story in  "The Fall of Kings" perhaps he ending up a sailor, but perhaps not....</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Blood

My Blood

Theron's steps echoed down the long empty hall. His feet beat out the patter of his thoughts, empty, haunting. Silence hung in their wake, a silence that rang like the clash of symbols. The sun's rays beamed across the hard wooden floor, midgets' of dust floating up to dance it the noonday light. Theron stepped out onto the stone balcony overlooking the sea, his eyes turned north, they always turned north. The emptiness of the house was broken by the roar of waves cresting the rocks below. His father had had an eye for beauty. The house was nestled comfortably along the green coast, overlooking the sea.

The ghost of the dead still haunted this place. The void of their soundless voices could not be drowned by the gentle comforting words of his mother as she had tended him back to health. Nor could the reckless laughter of his sister break though the lingering memories. The house stood as a reminder of those gone, long dead but never forgotten. Theron wondered, not for the first time, how his mother had survived living in these halls with his father and the ghost of his lover. He no longer wondered why she had left them, he only wondered at her return.

Everything he touched, every garden path he walked whispered of the lovers who had built this place together. The very ground seemed hallowed by their love, and all others trespassing upon a sacred bond.

"Theron?" His mother's voice called to him. He could hear the worry lacing her words. In the few short months since he had first risen from his sick bed to walk to the window and look north, she had never ceased worrying. But he allowed her to fuss over him in silence, knowing it brought her some comfort to do so.

He turned away from the seductive call of the north, of the Land. He met her in the hall, a bulging basket of food slung upon her arm. "I thought we could go down to the beach for a picnic?"

He gave her a smile, though it did not reach his eyes, it never did. "Will Jessica come too?"

"No." There was no need to elaborate. The sea was calling her again. There could only be a handful of days left before she succumbed to the seductive call of her watery mistress, and left them for the rolling waves and distant lands. They would be alone then, but for the servants.

They walked down the rocky path that led to nestled white sandy beaches, a companionable silence hanging between them. Sophia did not force him into idle chatter, for which he was grateful. His eyes turned north as their feet sunk into the sand. His mother perched herself upon a rock as she unlaced her shoes letting her freed feet sink into the sun warmed sand, curling her toes in the gritty pillow. The shadow of a smile touched Theron's lips as he watched her, but then the spell was broken. His mother rose to spread a thick blanket upon the sand and scattered clumps of choked grass tuffs, and his eyes turned north, reaching out beyond the vast waters searching for a glimpse of that which was hidden. Searching for what had been wrenched from him.

His mother caught his gaze and broke into his thoughts before they could stray too deep down that dark hole. "Theron, come have some wine. " He joined her, forcing his eyes to study the little creases about her worried eyes, hating the knowledge that it was he who had brought her back here, back into living memory.

He took the offered wine, and delicate cucumber sandwiches she'd packed, and forced himself to be the company she deserved. "Have you been down to the village today, Sophia?"

"Yes, Calie's heavy with child and pains took her this morning, but it was only a false alarm. It looks like she may carry the child to full term."

"That is well." Theron tried to muster some enthusiasm for his mother's work, but it had never much interested him before and it was no different now. Silence fell again, and this time it was tinged by the uncomfortable gap of worlds. His eyes strayed north of their own accord, and he did not see his mother worry her lip as his eyes sought out the Land once again.

He imagined sometimes that he could taste a faint lingering of fresh tilled earth; he thought he caught an odor of apple blossoms and rain kissed meadows. He dreamed he heard the echoing call of an elk ringing in the deep words, the gentle creep of a lady beetle scaling a flower steam. But he could not be sure, and he knew it would have been better not to try, but the ach would overwhelm him at times. A deep yearning void pulsed through his veins screaming for the touch of the Land. His blood cried out for it, writhing against the sea that was nothing but a barrier between the sweetness it craved and the body so many long miles sundered.

"It will fade in time, Theron." His mother's voice reached him from a distance. He's consciousness had sunk down into the earth, seeking a union the island could not grant him.

His eyes turned back to his mother, a tormented soul shining out. "I shall die, it is killing me."

"No, you will not. That is a lie it tells you to bring you back, but it does not have that power over you, not unless you give it."

"You do not understand." They had had this conversation more times than he could count, and he had had it with his sister many times as well. But how could they understand this? It was as if his soul had been torn it two, and he could not breath for the pain.

"But I do understand, Theron. What you are feeling is like the loss of a lover, and that I know. But it will not kill you, not unless you allow it too."

Theron let out a bitter laugh, and his anguish cut his words into sharp daggers. "You know the grief of a lost lover? Yet the very walls of this house speak of the one who came before you. Do you really think the Duke loved you? I do not think he forgot his swordsman for one moment, not one breath he spent with you was not used wishing Richard St. Vier was the one in his arms."

Sophia drew back as if struck. Her face paled and her words were clipped, "I shall forgive you your words for you speak without knowledge and in your grief, but you will excuse me if I do not wish to wallow in it with you."

She rose from the blanket to look down at him. The light played in her dark hair glinting in the silky strands and carving out her pale cheekbones and compressed mouth. Her bare feet sunk deep and steady into the sand, her face grim, and her eyes wounded. But then she turned and pressed a slender hand to her mouth holding back harsh words or pained sobs Theron did not know.

"Mother, wait!" But she only shook her head and hurried towards the cliff path. "Mama," the wind caught the pleading word tossing it back in his face, mocking him with its frailty. But he did not follow her. He watched until she disappeared down the twisting path, her gate devoid of the sure spring it had held but moments before.

Theron sank to his knees in the now sand tossed cloth, but his back faced the cut path his mother's form had disappeared down, his eyes turned out to sea. The waves crashed into the rocky beach, gathering momentum as the horizon hazed with swirling storm clouds. Minutes dripped by and the sun bopped in and out of the approaching gray wrath. The wind picked up the copper strands of his hair, still long as a scholar's, and tangled them about his face. But Theron did not feel the creeping chill and the snap of wild winds. His eyes started ahead sightless.

_I do not think he forgot his swordsman for one moment, not one breath he spent with you was not used wishing Richard St. Vier was the one in his arms._

His eyes squeezed shut as his stabbing words ran again through his mind. When had he become so cruel? He wanted to fly up the twisting path, run to his mother and bury his head in her knees breathing in her clean herbal scent. He wanted to take back the sting of his words that had cut her like shattered glass, that he had _wanted_ to cut her. But he did not move, did not rise to find her, and his eyes stayed glued to the north.

The sun broke through the twisting clouds, its warm rays dancing in his copper strands like a lovers embrace. The heat of its touch brushing his back and shoulders. He sighed, and turned his head to catch the elusive finger tips. His lashes fluttered open again and his eyes traveled the white stretch of the secluded beach.

A man clad in a billowing white shirt and an open vest of black leather, walked towards him. His hair was dark, soft curls kissing his forehead and twirling about his ears. His face was tanned with good sun; his jaw chiseled with a dusting of bearded stubble across it. He walked casually as if he had all the time in the world, his long legs bringing him rapidly closer, his boots sinking into the wet sand leaving a trail for the waves to wash away.

The stranger brought a half eaten peach up to his lips, the flash of white as his teeth torn into the fuzzy flesh, a drip of thick juice tracing his chin before he wiped it away. The stranger's blue eyes found Theron where he still knelt closer into the cliff face. The man abruptly changed directions, bending his path inward to meet him. He offered Theron a smile which he did not return, and tossed the peach out to sea before wiping sticky fingers on loose breeches.

"Hello," the man said as he pulled up before Theron, a friendly smile still playing across his lips.

"Who are you?" Theron asked abruptly, not indulging in pleasantries. He only wished the young man would leave him be, leave him to sit alone while the coming rains crashed through him, his eyes never straying from the north.

The man cocked a brow at the sharpness in Theron's tone, and his eyes swept over Theron again as if not fully seeing him before. "I am a wanderer. A musician if you like." He pulled a small harp from his back in explanation, and shifted himself down next to Theron without invitation. His hand easily adjusted the sword at his waist to make himself more comfortable. "But I do not think that is what you were asking, is it?"

Theron did not reply. The man turned the question back, "And who are you?"

"I do not know." Theron had not meant to form those words, though he knew they were true. But something made his tongue continue even as his mind wished to pull back from speech, and sink again into the numbing burning ache of the Land. "I am not a king."

"Well that I believe." The man's tone was only half guesting, and he fell silent, waiting for Theron to continue.

"I am not a scholar, I thought I was but he said I was not. I am not a politician, not really a noble. I am not a swordsman," His eyes trailed to the weapon on at the others side. He knew enough about swords to know it was more than decoration.

"Nor am I." The man countered the look.

"I am not a husband, not a father, not even a good son." Theron's voice trailed, letting the wind pick them up and do what it would with the self-pitying speech.

"And what would you like to be?"

Theron looked up, startled by the question "It is not a question of what I want to be…"

But the man interrupted, "There you are wrong, it is up to you."

Theron did not respond. How could be explain the Land? It was not his choice, he was no longer his own; he had never been his own. There had always been others bidding for a piece of him, each part striving to mold him into what they wanted. And the one thing he had wanted to be he was not. Basil had shown him he was no scholar, yet what else was there? His hands sunk deep into the coarse sand, feeling for the pulse of the Land, but he would never find it here.

"Will you play a song for me, minstrel?" Theron's voice reached out of the darkness, a longing for the wild notes of the north nearly suffocating him with its intensity.

"I shall." The stranger settled the harp in his lap, his arms coming about it to cradle it like a lover. With the first plucking of strings Theron's hands clenched in the sand, his head falling forward to rest on his chest.

The tune wove itself about him, flowing into his bones lifting the blood of the Land to course through his being, until he sat trembling with the power of it. And then the man's voice joined the haunting wild notes. Theron had never heard such a voice, and could have laughed at the casual shrug the man had given when he'd said he was a musician. The voice was rich like honey and molten gold. Theron did not know the language the gifted tongue shaped, but it had ceased to matter.

Theron's hands crawled deeper into the sand, wanting to reach down into its deepest heart. His blood flowed down into the sand seeking the lost connection with the Land. His thoughts reached out across the turbulent waters, north. And then he caught it like the distant clanging of a bell, its music held him enthrall. He felt the life pulse of the Land, faint, but steady. It reached out for him. Its pale arms stretching out across the miles and depths, desperate to embrace him like a long departed lover and pull him to her breast. But she could not reach him here, it was too far. Her voice was a distant call, her breast a remembered warmth that could not comfort him here. And as she recognized the distance between her and his lingering blood, her arms shifted, becoming like two dead things. They looked rotten, dead white skin decaying upon her bones. Her nails turned to sharp claws as she sought to drain the last of his blood and gorge herself upon him.

Theron had not realized when the song had ended and the golden voice had trailed into the wind. He started when a strong hand brushed his shoulder, bringing him back. A crease wedged itself between the man's eyes as his hands wiped the gathered sweat from Theron's brow. Theron did not have the strength to protest, his body trembled. He felt exhausted.

"What is wrong?" The man asked, but Theron could only shake his head mutely, a shiver running down his spine at the memory. His eyes looked north, hesitantly now, fearful he would see the corpse woman again; terrified that she was lurking there awaiting his return. Yet still the ache for the Land gawked at him, and he despaired of ever being free.

"I know what I am." Theron's voice split the weighted moment. The man waited for his words, and when they came they were carried on a voice fit only for the dead. "I am the heartbeat of the Land. I am its bridegroom, the husband to a corpse."

No reply came, what reply could the man say?

"I am nothing, and I am everything. I cannot hide here forever, yet if I return…" He did not have the answer for that question, for he did not know. Katherine had ordered him here, his mother and sister had willingly agreed, and it wasn't until this moment that he believed they might had been right. Whatever had happened to him, whatever tie Basil had made between him and the Land, Theron was now convinced it would have truly driven him into madness.

His thoughts turned to his dead lover. It was a conflicting path. He had loved Basil, and yet… for all the love he felt as if with the scholar's death he had been freed from ropes he had not even known had held him. They had been ropes of velvet, caressing his skin with soft kisses, yet ropes none the less.

The man's voice broke into his thoughts, "I do not know what you speak of, but that is for you to tell. Yet I would offer you what help I might, and I think you had best stay here a little longer." His words were spoken out of ignorance, but Theron felt strangely comforted by them all the same.

His eyes turned back to the stranger, leaving the north. The man's blue gaze was intense and filled with an honest sincerity. "Why would you want to help me, do you not think me mad? Mad like my father."

"Mad? Perhaps, perhaps not," he gave a little shrug as if it didn't really matter, his eyes never flickering from Theron's.

"Theron," Theron finally introduced himself, "I am Theron Campion."

The man's eyes smiled, "Ruben."

They looked at each other a moment longer in silence. Shadow's played over the strong planes of Ruben's face, dipping into the hallow of cheeks, and sharpening his nose. He was young, perhaps only a few years older than Theron. Theron found himself flooded with questions as he scrutinized Ruben. He was a mystery cloaked in an openness that drew Theron.

"You are a husband you say? Yet I find myself wanting to kiss you Theron Campion. Do you think your lady would begrudge a stolen kiss?"

"I think not." Theron's hands ran along his breeches, dusting off the white sand, before they wound themselves in Ruben's soft dark hair, and pulled him closer by the neck of his loose shirt.

Ruben's carved lips sank into his, his arms reaching to clasp Theron flush against him. Ruben tasted of salty sea and the lingering juices of the peach. His lips were sure as they molded against Theron's, his tongue eagerly finding Theron's own in an easy addictive rhythm. Theron let out a moan before they pulled apart, both of them breathing hard.

"You taste incredible." Said Ruben in a breathless paint, "Like fresh dew, and honeysuckle, and hot earth." A breathy laugh escaped Ruben's lips, "Strange as that sounds you taste like the earth, but so much more."

"The Land," Theron's voice was a barely voiced whisper, "You tasted the blood of the Land." _But now it is my blood, and the Land will not have it, nor me._


End file.
